Arpit Mishra

Key Takeaways for Tech Recruiters

• Benchmark existing employees to identify skill gaps before hiring externally.
• Adopt data-driven strategies to expedite and enhance the quality of the hiring process.
• Use AI-powered tools to assess and identify top talent.
• Engage with talent via hackathons and coding challenges.
• Aim to provide a positive candidate experience with your recruitment methods. 

Introduction

India’s technology sector has seen impeccable growth in recent years, creating exciting job opportunities for engineering professionals. However, the employment numbers reflect a different picture. Every year, roughly 1.5 million students graduate from engineering colleges. However, only 10% can find employment as they lack the practical skills to qualify for coveted jobs. Therefore, identifying, assessing and hiring top talent is challenging for even the most skilled and experienced recruiters. To tackle this issue, hiring teams must adapt data-driven strategies, leverage AI-powered tools and focus on skills-based hiring. 

In this article we explore modern technology recruiting techniques that can help recruiters make faster, fairer, and more efficient hiring decisions.

The Challenges in Tech Hiring Today

Decline In Skilled Talent

Although there is no shortage of highly qualified developers in today’s job market, there is an acute shortage of ones that are well-rounded. One of the major issues recruiters face today is finding the skilled and talented developers with industry-specific skills.

A LinkedIn report found that 67% of recruiters struggle to source qualified candidates for technical positions. 

Passive Hiring Is Passe

Traditional hiring methods are ineffective and are being replaced with AI and automation. Even advanced Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) fail to capture real skills, leading to a gap between the job requirements and a candidate’s true capabilities leading to very few favourable results.

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Pro tip! Use live assessment tests to assess candidate skills in real time.

Bias in Hiring Still Exists

Several companies still rely on conventional hiring methods, leading to unconscious bias, causing them to miss out on acquiring great talent. Over 60% of hiring managers admit that hiring decisions are biased at some point in the recruitment process.

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Candidate Experience Matters More Than Ever

A positive candidate experience is crucial in retaining good talent. Shorter hiring periods, and prompt response after interviews are some of the ways to keep new talent engaged in the recruitment process.  Lengthy assessment periods, slow feedback loops and outdated interview formats turn candidates away even from the most admired brands/companies.

Pro tip! Aim to complete the entire hiring process for top talent within 2 weeks 

Overcoming Hiring Challenges with Modern Recruiting Techniques

Attracting Top Talent 

The first step towards employing the best tech talent is to craft meaningful job descriptions. In tech recruitment, top talent is attracted to a purpose-driven job description over everything else. Engineers are realists. So it is essential to showcase your organisation’s tech values to attract skilled talent.

Leverage AI-Powered Screening

AI-powered recruitment tools can help recruiters find top talent without bias, automate mundane tasks, reduce hiring time and ensure diversity.

How to Implement AI-Powered Assessments:

• AI-driven assessments rank candidates based on skills and problem-solving efficiency.
• Automated coding interview platforms like HackerEarth FaceCodeprovide real-time code playback and instant feedback.
• Reduce unconscious bias by using AI-powered resume masking to focus on skills rather than demographics.

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Pro Tip: Remember that no matter how efficient AI is, at the end of the day it is a program that can produce potentially biased results. Hence, ensure that your hiring strategies include human intervention at crucial stages.

Use Hackathons to Identify Top Talent

Hackathons are an excellent way to engage with top developers while assessing their technical and collaboration skills.

How to Use Hackathon as a Hiring Tool?

• Host a hiring hackathon to attract top talent and test problem-solving capabilities.
• Use hackathons as a pre-hiring assessment to see how candidates perform under real-world pressure.
• Engage with HackerEarth’s rich global developer community of 9.6M+ developers..

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Adopt Skills-Based Hiring

Resumes fail to capture the true skills of potential candidates. Instead, use online assessment tools to understand and assess potential candidates in real time.

How to Implement Skills-Based Assessments:

• Use HackerEarth Assessments to evaluate coding and problem-solving abilities.
• Design real-world coding projects that mimic actual work scenarios.
• Incorporate full-stack developer assessments to gauge a candidate’s overall expertise.

Enhance Candidate Experience with Seamless Processes

Leverage developer-friendly forums like GitHub and LinkedIn to attract skilful candidates. Make yourself approachable to potential candidates by leveraging chatbots to answer common questions they might have about your company. Such practices enhance employee engagement, garner good brand recognition and facilitate seamless hiring.

How to Enhance Candidate Experience?

• Cut down assessment time with AI-powered adaptive testing that adjusts difficulty based on responses.
• Offer live coding interviews instead of multiple rounds of generic technical screenings.
• Provide instant feedback to candidates post-assessment to improve engagement.

Benchmark Internal Talent for Strategic Hiring

Implement internal feedback loops that help bridge skill gaps, and then advertise for candidates accordingly.

How to Implement:

• Use internal benchmarking to measure current employee skills against industry standards.
• Create personalized learning paths for upskilling developers before sourcing externally.
• Encourage internal upward mobility by promoting skilled employees into open roles instead of hiring externally. It’s not only cheaper but it also increases retention and improves employee morale.

Case Study: How MoEngage Enhanced Hiring Quality with HackerEarth

Challenge: MoEngage, a customer engagement platform, wanted to add top notch talent to its engineering team quickly but found conventional screening methods misaligned and difficult to manage. 

Solution: By partnering with HackerEarth, MoEngage introduced technical assessments to pre-screen candidates before technical interviews. This streamlined the hiring process and ensured that only qualified candidates progressed to the interview stages.

Key Achievements:

• 50% improvement in candidate quality: The introduction of assessments led to a higher calibre of candidates reaching the interview stage.
• 400% expansion in the talent pool: Automated assessments allowed MoEngage to consider a broader range of applicants without increasing the recruitment team's workload.
• Reduction in interviews per hire: Previously, hiring managers interviewed up to 15 candidates per role; with HackerEarth's assessments, this number decreased to 6, optimising interviewer time and resources.

Results: MoEngage successfully scaled its engineering teams, improved the efficiency of its hiring process, and ensured a higher calibre of new hires, contributing to the company's growth and innovation.

Read the full case study here: hackerearth.com

The Future of Technology Recruiting

The recruitment landscape is evolving rapidly. With AI, data-driven decision-making, and skills-first hiring, companies can identify and retain the best developers faster and more efficiently.

Conclusion

The tech industry is making transformative strides with the help of AI and automation. To keep up with changing times, recruiters must accept and adapt data-driven methods to identify, assess and hire skilled professionals. HackerEarth’s assessment solutions are agile and capable of helping modern-day recruiters carry out their mission of aligning top tier talent with organization’s needs. Skills-based assessments, AI-driven hiring practices, and hackathons are here to stay, and recruiters must leverage these tools to find the best tech talent in the industry.

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The tech industry has always grappled with finding skilled talent. While the demand continues to skyrocket for IT professionals, the available talent pools keep diminishing. In fact, a 2022 ManPower Group study shows employers struggling to find qualified tech talent. Global talent shortages reach a 16-year-high as 3 in 4 employers report difficulty finding the talent they need—and IT and data roles are the most in demand. So what happens when a niche role in your engineering team suddenly falls vacant? Filling that role instantly remains a pipedream. Filling that role within a week still seems farfetched. Beginning your recruiting efforts after a requirement occurs will not cut it anymore, especially in today’s competitive market. This is where having a robust talent acquisition strategy in place will have your back! In this article, we aim to explore how to –

• Reduce the impact of talent shortages on your organization and still remain competitive
• Proactively build a strong talent acquisition strategy to help attract talented developers

Settle in and let’s get to it!

How does recruitment differ from talent acquisition?

While both terms are used interchangeably, they mainly differ in their approach. To put it simply, recruitment is a short-term objective and talent acquisition is a long-term plan. To quote, “Recruitment is linear, talent acquisition is an ongoing cycle. ” Recruitment is limited to hiring candidates to fill a vacancy that exists in an organization. It begins once a role falls open. Predicting an organization’s hiring requirements, even before such a situation arises, is essentially what talent acquisition aims to do. Think of how you plan for a vacation. You anticipate the length of your trip, a rough itinerary, and other important expenses ahead of time. To get the best deals on tickets and accommodation, you do your research, plan, and book everything in advance. That is what a talent acquisition strategy is to hiring.

• List down your future hiring requirements
• Identify skill gaps in your teams
• Expand your talent pools with passive talent
• Plan and allocate your recruiting budget
• Budget in upskilling initiatives to better retain your current talent

Also read: 5 Tips From Recruiters To Fix Talent Acquisition Issues in 2023

Why is building a robust talent acquisition strategy important?

With an effective talent acquisition strategy in place, the organization can transition smoothly over its growth curves, with the confidence that as and when the need arises, a reliable pipeline of talent awaits. That’s how you hire the right people for your organization. Such strategic hiring empowers recruiters with both time and resources, which are both invaluable to recruiting. Recruiters can take their time to carefully plan out –

• How best to leverage the right tech recruiting tools to source and attract quality candidates
• Better engagement with potential candidates, well in advance, to cut down on the time it takes to fill vacant positions
• A strategy to foster diversity in the workplace
• How to boost productivity in your organization and save costs by hiring the right people

In the absence of such a planned approach to recruiting, companies often find themselves needing to hire at short notice with limited resources, often resulting in poor hires. A carefully thought-out long-term recruitment strategy will enable and empower the organization to hire superior talent. If you are serious about employee retention then invest in a good talent acquisition strategy.

Also read: 7 Recruitment Trends That Will Impact Talent Acquisition in 2023

How do you build a strong talent acquisition strategy?

Talent acquisition strategies are not generic and there is no rulebook that dictates how best to strategize. There are, however, certain best practices that can be adopted and customized to suit an organization’s requirements. Here we list some of the best talent acquisition strategies that HR departments follow.

#1 Assess and analyze the business using data

First and foremost, it is important to have a comprehensive understanding of your business, its long-term growth prospects, average monthly or yearly hiring load, past turnover trends, etc. to better understand periods of high or low demand. With tons of data available at their fingertips, recruiters are leveraging big data analytics to better assess and analyze issues associated with high turnover rates and the possible solutions to these issues. With a better understanding of the issues and their solutions, recruiters are able to make more effective hiring decisions through data-driven recruiting.

Also read: Optimize Your Hiring Process With Recruitment Analytics

#2 Leverage cross-team collaboration

Recruiting cannot happen in a vacuum. It is important to collaborate with other departments to leverage their skills in better tailoring your talent acquisition strategies. For instance, the marketing department can help you with print and digital recruiting materials that can be used to attract potential candidates. Have in-depth discussions with your hiring managers to get a detailed understanding of the job role you’re hiring for. Another vital source of information and insight are your current employees in roles similar to the ones you are looking to hire for. They are a treasure trove of information and can provide insights into the work culture of the company, what drew them to the company, what would attract them to a new role, and where would they go to find it. Collaborating in this manner with the various departments of your business can not only help you understand certain aspects, hitherto unknown, of your business but also provide you with fresh perspectives and insights into your strategizing.

#3 Allow technology to aid you

On average, recruiters lose 14 hours per week completing tasks like scanning resumes, uploading candidate data, and sending emails manually. If you invested in smart AI-powered tech recruiting tools, they can do the heavy lifting for you. It saves you a lot of time and resources. With tools like HackerEarth, be it using our product for shortlisting candidates through coding assessments or conducting remote coding interviews, it helps remove human bias out of the equation. Additionally, it makes the process more efficient and effective. To be ahead of the curve when it comes to AI and automation, it is important to take an inventory of your recruitment tools — applicant tracking system (ATS), candidate relationship management system (CRM), onboarding system, career site — and check whether these are indeed providing the quality of insights that you expect them to deliver.

#4 Work on your employer branding

Employees diligently check out a potential workplace on social media sites and read employee reviews on sites such as Glassdoor to get the real scoop on companies before applying for a job. Update your company’s policies to offer flexible working schedules, remote work options, a casual Friday, or even paid sabbaticals. Such attractive perks go a long way in keeping the employee motivated at work. Apart from these, HRs need to strategize in collaboration with the marketing manager how best to align the employer brand with the corporate logo and brand on social media, job boards as well as print and digital media. Any piece of literature that bears the company’s logo is subject to scrutiny. Hence, it is very important to put a lot of thought into everything that is being communicated on behalf of the company.

Also read: How Tech Recruiters Can Build Better Employer Branding With Marketing

#5 Reevaluate the effectiveness of your talent acquisition strategy

To remain successful, companies have to conduct regular audits, leveraging data and technology to see the effectiveness of the strategies that have been put into action. While there are several metrics used by various companies to evaluate their strategies, the most significant ones are cost, time, quality, and quantity.

Cost as a metric

A detailed analysis to determine cost inefficiencies in your process is crucial to measure the success of your strategies. Cost is an effective metric to measure quality since financial resources are limited and, if one cannot function within a budget, it is prudent to reevaluate it.

Also read: 6 Steps To Create A Detailed Recruiting Budget (+Free Template)

Time as a metric

Time is a little more complicated metric to measure the success or failure of a strategy. For instance, some processes reap rewards in the short term, while others do so over a longer period of time. A detailed, case-by-case study is essential to determine the effect time has on the effectiveness of strategies.

Quality as a metric

Quality, like time, is a fickle entity. Each organization would have a different interpretation of what it means. While one organization would value obedience, another may value innovation and yet another may define it by leadership and cultural fit. Whatever your organization’s definition of quality is, it is important to measure the success of your strategies against the quality of hire.

Quantity as a metric

Hiring more employees than necessary is bound to take a toll on company resources. However, hiring inadequately will severely affect the desired outcome and can have a damaging effect on the morale of employees. Quantity is, therefore, a great way to measure the effectiveness of strategies.

A good talent acquisition strategy is always in flux

Crafting a talent acquisition strategy is imperative to the success of your business and to ensure that recruitment as a process is conducted not merely on a need basis but as part of the strategy. Recruiters cannot afford to be reactive in their hiring. It’s all about the early bird catching the worm, and proactive recruiters landing the best, most talented candidates! However, there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to building a strategy for talent acquisition. We hope the tips mentioned in this article will help you create and tailor a strategy according to your business requirements.

FAQs on how to refine your talent acquisition strategy:

#1 What are the essential components of building a good tech talent acquisition strategy?

A good tech talent acquisition strategy should focus on the following aspects:

• Engagement: Even before a vacancy opens up, tech recruiters need to start creating a dialogue with the developer community. This can be done by participating, sponsoring, or organizing events like hackathons where developers can network.
• Employer branding: A strong employer brand helps in attracting top talent to your organization. This includes showcasing your company culture, values, and mission.
• Recruitment marketing: Using various channels to promote job openings, such as social media, job boards, and networking events, is important in reaching potential candidates.
• Candidate experience: Providing a positive candidate experience, from the application process to onboarding, can help attract and retain top talent. Effective assessment methods, such as skill tests, coding interviews that involve pair programming and other practices can help amplify the candidate experience.
• Diversity and Inclusion: Bake in diversity and inclusion policies into your hiring process to attract a wider pool of candidates and create a more inclusive workplace culture.
• Data-driven approach: Using data to track the effectiveness of your recruitment efforts and make data-driven decisions can help optimize your talent acquisition strategy over time.

#2 What are important things to consider when creating a global tech talent acquisition strategy?

• Define your talent needs: The first step is to identify the types of roles that need to be filled and the skills required for each role. Determine if you need to fill these roles with local hires or if it’s better to relocate or outsource talent.
• Determine your target markets: Identify the geographic regions where you want to source talent from. Consider factors such as the availability of talent, the cost of living, and the cultural fit.
• Develop your employer brand: Create a strong employer brand that showcases your company’s values, mission, and culture. Use social media and other platforms to promote your employer brand and attract the best talent.
• Use multiple channels for recruitment: Consider using multiple channels for recruitment, such as job boards, social media, employee referrals, and recruiting agencies. This will help you reach a broader pool of candidates.
• Consider language and cultural barriers: When recruiting globally, language and cultural barriers can present challenges. Consider having a multilingual recruitment team or partnering with local recruitment agencies to help overcome these challenges.
• Implement an efficient screening process: Develop an efficient screening process that helps you identify the best candidates quickly. Use pre-screening tools and technology to help automate the process.
• Provide a great candidate experience: Provide a great candidate experience that showcases your company’s culture and values. This will help you attract and retain top talent.
• Monitor and adjust your strategy: Finally, monitor your recruitment strategy regularly and adjust it as needed. Use analytics and data to track your success and make data-driven decisions.

#3 Define a good tech talent acquisition framework

Here’s an example of a tech talent acquisition framework:

• Define your candidate persona: Identify the specific skills, experience, and cultural fit you’re looking for in a candidate. This may include programming languages, industry experience, project management skills, and more.
• Create job descriptions: Craft clear and concise job descriptions that accurately reflect the role’s responsibilities, required skills, and desired experience.
• Source candidates: Use various sourcing channels such as job boards, LinkedIn, and networking events to identify and attract candidates who meet your ideal candidate profile.
• Screen candidates: Use phone screens, technical assessments, and behavioral interviews to evaluate the candidate’s qualifications, skills, and fit for the role and your company’s culture.
• Assess and interview: Use skill-based take-home assessments to shortlist candidates based on their assignment score, and move them to the interview round.
• Close the offer: Once a candidate is through, extend an offer that’s competitive and fair, with salary and benefits packages that reflect the candidate’s value.
• Onboard new hires: Provide a comprehensive onboarding program that helps new hires acclimate to your company’s culture and sets them up for success in their new role.
• Measure success: Track your success in hiring top talent by measuring your time-to-fill, the quality of candidates, retention rates, and employee satisfaction.

#4 How can technology help with your tech talent acquisition strategy?

Technology can play a significant role in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of your tech talent hiring strategy. Here are some ways you can use technology to enhance your hiring process:

• Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS): Implement an ATS to streamline your hiring process and manage candidate applications. This can help you organize resumes, track candidate status, and automate communication.
• AI-powered assessments: Skill-based assessments can help you qualify candidates from a large pool. AI-powered assessment platforms can benchmark candidate results, so you can pick the best candidates that fulfill your skill requirements. They can also weed out manual errors in the assessment process.
• Video Interviewing: Video interview tools with built-in IDEs and real-time coding features can help you check coding skills on the fly through the use of code stubs or pair programming methods.
• Virtual Reality (VR): Use VR to create immersive experiences that showcase your company culture, work environment, and team collaboration. This can help candidates get a better sense of your company and the role they would be playing.

#5 How can you incorporate DE&I in your tech talent acquisition strategy?

Baking in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) into your tech talent acquisition strategy can help ensure that your hiring process is fair and equitable and that your team represents diverse perspectives and backgrounds. Here are some ways you can incorporate DE&I into your tech talent acquisition strategy:

• Ensure your job descriptions are inclusive and avoid gendered or biased language.
• Expand your sourcing channels beyond traditional job boards to reach underrepresented groups like developer communities in HBCs (Historically Black Colleges).
• Engage with diversity-focused organizations, attend diversity job fairs, and consider partnering with universities with diverse student populations.
• Train your interviewers to be aware of bias and to ask inclusive questions that focus on skills and experience.
• Create structured interviews that ask the same questions to all candidates to avoid unconscious biases.
• Identify objective selection criteria that focus on skills, experience, and cultural fit, and avoid using criteria that may perpetuate bias or exclude underrepresented groups.
• Set diversity targets and measure your success the same way you would measure TTH and cost benefits.
• Create a workplace that’s inclusive and welcoming to all employees, regardless of their background, and make this part of the employer branding activities.

#6 How do you create a tech talent acquisition strategy?

Creating a tech talent acquisition strategy involves understanding your company’s technical needs, defining clear roles and responsibilities, and leveraging various recruitment channels.

Begin by analyzing your current technical team’s strengths and gaps. Collaborate with department heads to forecast future tech needs. Then, tailor your job descriptions to attract the right candidates. Utilize online job portals, tech-specific platforms, and engage in networking events and tech conferences. Regularly review and adjust your strategy based on the results and evolving needs.

#7 What are some best practices in technical talent acquisition?

• Writing clear job descriptions that precisely define technical roles, responsibilities, and requirements to attract suitable candidates.
• Using a mix of job portals, networking events, tech conferences, and referrals to source candidates.
• Implementing technical tests, coding challenges, and interviews to assess technical and soft skills.
• Positioning your company as a desirable place to work, emphasizing culture, growth opportunities, and unique selling points.
• Promoting opportunities for professional development, ensuring talent remains updated with industry trends.

#8 What are the biggest challenges in tech talent acquisition?

The biggest challenges in tech talent acquisition currently are:

• The skills gap. There is a shortage of skilled tech workers in the market, which makes it difficult for companies to find the talent they need.
• The war for talent. Many companies are competing for the same pool of tech talent, which drives up salaries and makes it harder to attract and retain top talent.
• The high cost of hiring. The cost of hiring tech talent is rising, due to the factors mentioned above. This can put a strain on company budgets.
• The long hiring process. The hiring process for tech roles can be long and drawn-out, which can discourage candidates and lead to lost opportunities.
• The lack of diversity in the tech workforce. The tech workforce is still disproportionately white and male, which can make it difficult for companies to attract and retain a diverse range of talent.

#9 How do you build a tech talent acquisition pipeline?

Below we have listed the steps involved in building a tech talent acquisition pipeline:

• Sourcing: Actively seek out candidates using job portals, social media, tech platforms like GitHub or Stack Overflow, and through referrals. Sourcing candidates should be a regular process and should be done even when there is no active open role. Thai way, recruiters and engineering managers can keep a handy database of prospective candidates ready.
• Engaging: Maintain regular communication with potential candidates, even if there isn’t an immediate vacancy. This helps in building relationships for future roles. Hackathons are a great way to engage and connect with developers, and improve brand recognition within the developer community.
• Screening: Regularly review and update your screening processes, by employing a robust platform for conducting technical tests, and soft skill assessments.
• Onboarding: Companies see a high percentage of drop-off during the waiting period i.e. when they are waiting for a developer to finish the notice at their previous employer and join their company. It is necessary to keep engaged with the developer even during this period, and help them onboard to the new company through regular communication. The onboarding process can continue when the developer formally joins the company and is introduced to different departments and functions.
• Continuous learning: An oft-missed part of the talent acquisition process is the provision of continuous learning opportunities to developers, so that the can grow into new roles and skills and attrition can be kept low.

An employee handbook, as the name suggests, is a handy communication tool that informs and creates awareness about an organization’s guidelines and policies and gives insight into the company’s vision and culture.

Since Indian labor and employment laws are considered to be one of the most complex ones in the world, most companies use an employee handbook as a convenient measure to ensure compliance with these laws.

While most organizations opt for the tried-and-tested-route when it comes to drafting an employee handbook, some companies breathe inspiration and creativity into theirs.

A poorly drafted employee handbook is also said to be an effective sedative in the treatment of insomnia (right alongside my 9th-grade history textbook)!

So, let us focus on how not to create such a potent draught and instead try and make it an effective and beneficial communication tool!

9 steps to write a detailed employee handbook –

1. The disclaimer

A disclaimer is what defines the nature of the employee handbook and should at the very outset state that the employee handbook is not a contract of employment.

Not including this critical point in the handbook could leave your organization vulnerable to lawsuits by terminated employees.

2. Introduction and a welcome note

Most employee handbooks start with the customary “introduction and welcome note” that introduces employees to the company’s principles, goals, and core values.

An important point to remember while drafting this is to avoid figurative language, for instance, referring to the organization as a family, as it could imply indefinite employment!

Instead, provide them with a general overview of the work environment and hierarchy.

Another critical point to include is regarding the at-will employment relationship which states that the employee can be terminated at will anytime with or without notice by the employer or employee.

Valve, a gaming software company’s employee handbookis an excellent example of one that communicates its work culture, a brief description of how it started and its lack of hierarchy in an upbeat, empathetic yet effective manner.

This ensures an effective communication of what the employee can expect from the company and its management and what is expected of them.

3. Company’s mission statement

A successful business is one where all its employees are aligned with the company’s vision and goals and work toward bringing the same to fruition.

The first step toward this is to state in lucid terms what these goals are so that it imparts a sense of purpose and duty to the employee.

Brimming with personality and written in a conversational style is the much talked about handbook of Disqus, an online blog comment hosting service company.

The Disqus handbook covers everything from the mission statement, product overview, and milestones to their favorite phrases and life at Disqus, and all done in an engaging and lighthearted manner.

4. Sexual harassment and anti-discrimination policies

It is important to expressly state in your handbook your company’s zero-tolerance policy toward harassment or discrimination of any kind.

It is advisable to take professional legal advice while drafting this section since it requires you to define harassment in the workplace and how to identify it.

The employee must also be made aware of the contact details of the person to whom such an incident can be reported.

The Infosys employee handbookhas a detailed section dedicated to its harassment and discriminatory policies where they appeal to everyone to respect each other to create a safe workplace.

5. Leave policies

Most companies these days are quite accommodating of their employees’ leave requirements.

Whether you have a strict policy regarding it or are more relaxed when it comes to your employees taking time off, clearly mention the kinds of leave permissible such as vacations, sick days, maternity leave, etc.

Do not neglect to disclose any restrictions on leaves of absence such as termination of employment or revoking of employee benefits due to excessive time off.

It is important to mention a timeframe within which employees can apply for vacation or other leaves.

Motley Fool’shas a rather straightforward “take what you need” attitude with regard to its vacation policy as clearly mentioned in their handbook.

6. Disciplinary policies

A company’s employee handbook is a valuable document not only when it comes to introducing the employee to the organization’s work culture and important policies, but also as a deterrent to inappropriate and unprofessional behavior.

Clearly define what constitutes employee misconduct while explaining the consequences of such actions. It has to be made clear, however, that inappropriate actions/behavior would be judged on a case-by-case basis by the organization.

The language used in explaining such sensitive topics must never be threatening as that would lead the employees to be in a constant state of fear of being disproportionately punished.

An important point to be included under this section is a disclaimer that states “or any other behavior proven to be detrimental and harmful to the company” so that the misconduct mentioned are not limited to only the ones listed.

7. Social networking and blogging

With social media pervading our everyday lives, it is crucial to specify what the organization’s policies are regarding accessing social media account while at work.

If this is strictly prohibited, then mention that in the handbook along with the disciplinary action that accompanies such insubordination.

There should be strict rules regarding posting of confidential or proprietary company information and photos of colleagues taken at the workplace.

8. Employee benefits

Most organizations go on to give descriptions of employee benefits that they offer and this could include information related to health insurance, company retirement plans, compensation, disability coverage to name a few. It is not recommended, however, to give a detailed account of the benefits, since most companies typically have separate benefits plans that explain these in greater detail.

All that is needed here is a brief description of the benefits offered and eligibility criteria along with contact information.

Some companies offer stock options as a way to motivate their employees and it is proven to be quite an effective way to cultivate a sense of ownership toward the company’s success. states it thus, “Every Fool is an owner of The Motley Fool. Shortly after joining the Fool, you’ll be granted shares in the company. There are also periodic opportunities for Fools to buy more shares or sell what they own.”

It is crucial to include a disclaimer in this section in the event of any inconsistencies between the handbook and any oral or written document describing the plans and benefits offered by the company.

It is advisable to ensure that the handbook’s description of benefit plans aligns with the company’s formal plan documents.

9. Termination policies

This section pertains to policies regarding voluntary termination of employment.

Depending on your organization’s policies, clearly, state the period of advance notice that the employee is expected to provide before terminating his employment.

Provide information, although brief regarding your company’s termination policies including final paychecks, what employees need to do, whether there would be an exit interview etc.

While some organizations include this under the companies policy section, others draft this as a separate section in their handbook.

A few tips to consider before writing an Employee Handbook

An employee handbook is a living document and not something that is to be written and then forgotten soon after. It needs to be updated frequently, reviewed and personalized per your company’s policies and values.

Avoid making your handbook bulky and unmanageable. With most companies going digital with their handbook, it is even more of a necessity to make it a light yet effective read.

Most handbooks come with a signed acknowledgment form which the employee is expected to sign. Failing to do so will not provide any ‘legal protection benefits’ in the event of a lawsuit by the employee.

The above-mentioned points should help guide you in the right direction while drafting your own employee handbook.

Whether you choose to take the more conservative approach to draft it or allow creativity to guide you down that path, keep in mind that a handbook is essentially a document that communicates to a new employee what you expect from him/her and what he/she can expect in return from you.

Your language and design should reflect this in as clear a way as possible. It is also advisable to seek legal counsel to ensure there are no legal loopholes that can be exploited before publishing it in print or online.

While your team works toward creating a great employee handbook, it is important to ensure that you hire the right candidate for your company.

With growing technology, sourcing candidate is not a major issue. For every opening, you receive thousands of application.

What is important is to assess these candidates based on their skills, without being biased.

Using Talent Assessment software like HackerEarth not only helps you scale your hiring process by evaluating thousands of candidate with a single click, it also shares a detailed comparison report of candidates. Giving a detailed report, before you interview a candidate.

So make sure only the right candidate reads your Employee Handbook, while you put so much effort into it. Use a Talent Assessment Software.

#DidYouKnow: 92% of recruiters use social media for hiring, and there are more than 100 portals serving as job boards.

#DidYouKnow: Over 87% of non-management and salaried employees were recruited through social media.

#DidYouKnow: Over 82% of management employees came from social media.

The above survey by the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) gives some deep insights into the rising importance of social media in recruitment.

What is Social HR?

Social media has seen an unparalleled rise in the last few years and has redefined the way we use the internet.

It won’t be wrong if we say it has created a parallel ecosystem for individuals and businesses alike.

Now organizations, and even the government can no longer survive on bi-monthly newspaper advertisements or get away with mere yearly employee brochures.

They need to be active on social media to cater to employees, customers, and, sometimes, even business partners.

The challenge lies in not just finding the right talent through social media but also in nurturing it while ensuring enough privacy.

Often while dealing with talent challenges, HR is unable to draw the line between maintaining the traditions of the organization while doing away with the legacy model.

Especially, when it comes to tools like social media and individual freedom of speech for employees on online platforms.

Most of the concerns about being around the privacy or freedom of the candidates.

In an age where one negative feedback on an online portal can impact your prospects of getting the best candidates, it’s extremely important for Human Resource personnel to be conscious of the choices they make.

Here’s how you can use social media for your talent management purposes and how you can improve on Social HR.

How should human resource uses social media?

Source: Social talent

The best way to screen the finest talent

Check out this detailed video on social media for the Human resource by Kristy Bryant.

While social media is credited to be one of the reliable sources for garnering information about prospective employees, it’s also accused of revealing information like religion, caste, color, political affiliation, gender, marital status, etc.

These are the usual parameters of discrimination that work against diversity initiatives. Hence, it’s important for HR personnel to devise methods to screen talent smartly.

As Allyson Willoughby, former General Counsel and SVP of People (HR) Glassdoor, say on the use of social media in the screening process,

“Don’t do anything different with social media than you would do with a face-to-face interview.”

According to experts, the best way to deploy social media accounts in hiring processes is to involve a third party who does the screening for you.

People who do the screening need to be educated about the exact requirements for the designation they are shortlisting the candidates for.

This serves as a firewall between the employer and the candidate and ensures an unbiased approach.

When they (HR) do the background check of the candidate through social media as part of the screening process, it’s important for them to keep a check on the legal implications of the process.

Use of pre-assessment tools, like Hackerearth Recruit, can also be a great idea for HR managers looking for zero human interference in their recruitment processes.

Like the US, India also has laws against discrimination against minoritiesin recruitment, so it’s important for the organization to adhere to the terms and conditions of these policies.

How should Social Human Resource use online properties wisely

One of the key challenges that have surfaced with the deployment of social media channels for recruitment purposes is that they don’t represent the global candidate pool.

According to a recent survey, LinkedIn and Facebook have shown a smaller user base of minority communities in comparison to the general population.

Hence, diversity initiatives take a hit in situations like these.

Thus, the HR person needs to resort to traditional recruitment routes of job boards, advertisements in dailies, and mention it clearly on their website that they believe in equal opportunity.

You can even encourage your current employees to recommend their friends from minority communities and attach a greater referral bonus to such initiatives to boost your diversity efforts.

How can Social HR ensure positive image on social media

Recently, a few incidences surfaced where organizations faced the brunt of negative feedback from estranged employees.

Situations like these put the HR personnel in a tight spot as they don’t have much control over employees who have left the job and even if they do have, through some legal clauses, it’s not financially feasible for them to pursue the case against a single or a bunch of employees.

Moreover, it dampens the morale of current employees.

The bigger issue with sites such as Glassdoor or other job portals is that they don’t really delete the comments sent by the reviewers.

The question is, how does HR counter the negativity against the brand?

The wiser thing to do here would be to involve your social media managers or Online Reputation Management experts at the right time as larger organizations receive dozens of such negative comments on a monthly basis and that too on multiple portals.

Usually, digital marketing teams are equipped with tools that help you track down multiple websites in the shortest time.